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The last post I wrote about making a phone call in Japanese to a business. Quite recently I have had to make a couple phone calls to a business, and they weren’t pleasant ones. My Sony PS3 broke! Now before I go into all of that I want to talk about the good times.

I was a child of the 80s and 90s and Sony was an iconic brand in electronics. I could never afford anything from the Sony brand, but I wanted a Sony Walkman bad! And it wasn’t just Sony, it was most Japanese brands.

In college I finally saved up and bought a ps2. Since I didn’t have money to do much else I played it a lot. And while I heard horror stories, and mine occasionally wouldn’t read disks, I didn’t really have any problem with it.

Fast Forward to 2007.

I’m in Tokyo, working a job, and for the first time I have money to spare. The PS3 had recently come out and played blue rays, games, and can even be used as a Linux computer. The price is horrendous, the size and wight are ridiculous, and there are very few games. Seriously, at the time there may have only been about 10 or so games. 60,000yen (about $600) is a lot to put down, but it’s Sony. I’m sure it will last for a long time. Over the next two years games slowly, and I mean very slowly, trickled out (they came out much faster in the US).

To be honest I had a blast and was impressed with what the PS3 could do. However, there were also problems. For instance, I was forced to download updates that sometimes broke features, menus would randomly pop up while watching movies, and after only a year, the controllers started to not feel so well.

But, the games were slowly getting better and some of the stores here in Japan were finally starting to carry Bluerays.

The Sony Timer

In the US Sony is viewed as a higher end brand and generally costs more. Here in Japan however, there is a phrase that is associated with Sony, “the Sony timer”. Here in Japan, Sony products are so well known for breaking just outside of their warranty that many people actually believe they have been designed by Sony to do so. Do to the high number of failing products, Sony is one of the cheapest brands in Japan.

The deterioration

Fast Forward again to January of 2010.

I have had the PS3 for just over 2 years. My two Sony PS3 controllers (the one that came with the system and the one I bought shortly after) are both starting to not work properly. Though I don’t actually play games that often ( I am more of the casual gamer), the analog sticks do not retract well and are tending to stick in the forward direction.

The system itself occasionally shuts down in the middle of game play and must be started again. This has happened occasionally throughout the life of the PS3, so I don’t pay too much attention to it. However, it has also become more frequent. At the beginning of February, in the middle of a game the PS3 shuts down once again. I am annoyed, but not surprised. I am surprised when I hit the power button, and it beeps three times, but doesn’t turn back on. I try again and get the same result. My PS3 is dead!

Sony PS3 Ylod (Yellow Light of Death)

After a bit of searching, I found out that I had the Yellow Light of Death, which was caused by overheating. With the amount of posts and pages I found related to this topic, I was certainly not the only one. Apparently, it is very common on the earlier 40gb and 60gb models.

But I was an early adopter, and I paid over double the cost of the current PS3 slim on the market. I am sure Sony will take care of me.

So, I called Sony and received a very apologetic, but very insincere apology and was told that I could send back the PS3 for them to look at it. When I asked about this being common on my model, I was told this certainly was not the case. However, I was also told my model might cost an additional 7,800yen (about $78) over other models to fix. Wait, what?

In the case they had to replace or fix the motherboard, which I knew they would after reading through the internet, the total cost would come to 16,800 yen ($168). Not to mention I would only get a 90 day warranty. One which would only cover the same problem. After sending the PS3 back to Sony, I was notified a few days later that the system had indeed overheated and I needed a new motherboard. My options were to either pay the money or it stayed broken. I had them return it.

Is Sony the Next Toyota?

To be honest, living here in Japan, I don’t know a lot of what is going on with the whole Toyota thing in the US. However, I do believe that Toyota’s biggest problem isn’t the quality issue as much as the way they handled the problem. They tried to cover it up.

The Xbox is known to have a pretty high rate of failure with the early models. Basically caused by the same thing as the PS3, overheating. However, as far as I can tell from reading on the internet, Microsoft fixed the problem, through repairs, recalls, and by extending the warranty.

Sony is stating that this is not their fault and that the product is not faulty. They are claiming that the failure rate is very low, and while it does seem to be lower than the Xbox, info on the web seems to hint it is much higher than Sony’s data. Even the BBC did an episode where they fixed YLOD PS3 in front of Sony’s building as a protest.

So in the end, Sony has lost me as a customer. They also lost me as a supporter. Not only did I buy a PS3, I convinced 3 others to also purchase. Will I buy another PS3? In all honesty, possibly. After convincing some of my friends and family to purchase, it was a lot of fun to play with them online. I have also gained a small game and Blueray collection. But, these can be sold. Anyone know if the next Xbox release will be able to read Bluerays?

How to Fix PS3 YLOD

In most cases, and with the right tools, the PS3 YLOD can be fixed. Though I do have to admit the fix only lasted a few weeks before I had to do it again. After a bit of searching, I came across this guide to fix the PS3 YLOD. It says it takes about an hour, but it took me about an hour and a half.

You will also need a few simple tools, a heat guns and some cpu grease. You can also find videos on Youtube. Since this was a bit scary for me I used both. If you follow the instructions in the guide this isn’t too hard, I have now done it twice. It does take some time and patience though. Once again I will mention that this seems to be temporary, but it does work.

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